Nepal government moves ahead to rectify record keeping at Everest

KATHMANDU, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- In a bid to check bizarre sorts of record keeping attempts especially on Mount Everest and to make the overall mountaineering more organized and flawless, the government of Nepal has been working towards the promulgation of a Mountaineering Policy, for the first time.

Following what is deemed by the government as growing trend in setting bizarre records prone to devalue the glory of Nepal's mountains and also risky to the climbers' life, the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA), said Tuesday it has been working to curb such eccentricities through the introduction of fresh policy in the country.

With her sky rocketed, snow-capped mountains, Nepal has been experiencing growing number of local and foreign climbers every year, the majority of whose target is to win world's highest Mountain Everest.

"Of late, mountaineering has been much glamorized with the climbers desiring to set absurd records which calls for government 's intervention," Purna Chandra Bhattarai, joint secretary at MoCTCA told Xinhua.

Responding to the cases of anomalies and reports of violence between the climbers and Sherpa - the traditional porter - the Nepal government had in August announced to set up a permanent team at the Mount Everest base camp to check such malpractices around the summit area.

Ministry officials said the new policy will make it mandatory for climbers to announce beforehand if they planned to set any record on the peak. So far, climbers do not share their plan to set a record beforehand and they made the record claims only after they reached the summit.

The policy will also introduce number of categories for setting the records and the climbers' call for record beyond the categories would be rejected.

Bhattarai, chief of the tourism industry division at the ministry said a Royalty and Mountaineering Reform Committee has been formed, and is now exploring measures to make the mountaineering more reverential and organized. The committee will prepare its report, based on which the ministry said it will introduce the new national law.

The committee has identified around 25 areas including, setting minimum criteria for climbers seeking to climb Mount Everest and safety issues of porters and climbers, among others.

The committee is also working towards the revision of royalty on expedition to Mount Everest and other peaks. Each climber, both Nepali and foreign has to pay 1, 500 U.S. dollars to the government for climbing the Everest currently.

The committee is also planning to recommend government to restrict helicopter flights to nearby Everest slopes.

"Barring rescue operations, helicopters will not be allowed to fly to nearby mountain slopes as the vibrations and even the sound can cause the snow to fall, endangering lives of climbers," said Bhattarai.